Of Cat-Life, there has been one problem more troublesome then any other. The want of a coder.
In all the years that the mod has been in development… about six now… the team has seen several coders sign-on long enough to get their name on the team list. Then they either leave due to outside circumstances or they simply were not seriously interested in coding for our mod.
The video that BiGToM posted showing the early cat-code was mostly hard-coded map tricks and coding. The actual game code has yet to see any significant changes. This mod would probably be in beta phase by now had any one of our coders remained on team long enough to complete the Cat-FOV coding.
So… BiGToM contacted me yesterday on Steam for help with yet another coder request.
Team Cat-Life needs a coder. The mod itself is not going to develop much further without custom source code.
Cat-Life, for anyone that doesn’t already know, is a single-player Half-Life mod. The player will be tasked with surviving the Black Mesa incident of the original Half-Life, but from a new point of view.
This is NOT playing Half-Life but with cat replacement models or replacing Gordon Freeman with a cat. Rather, Cat-Life is the story of Newton… a scientist’s pet cat.
During the incident, poor Newton’s master is killed and the little fella has to escape the base alone… without being eaten or the ability to pick up the usual weapons.
You play Newton. You eat cat food. You try not be be eaten by the aliens. You claw, scratch, and bite your way through six chapters and a new hazard course. There will be more then 30 custom maps.
This is possibly one of the most unique and interesting mod concepts ever attempted and we ARE serious about completing it.
But we need your help.
Cat-Life needs a good, experienced coder for the GoldSource engine. Specifically, we need someone to lower the Field of View to a Cat’s eye level. That is the number one priority at the moment. Without such code completed for internal testing, the mappers can’t test their maps properly.
We also would like to add a Cat’s night vision, modified jumping, sprinting, pouncing, and such movement options… if these sorts of items are possible.
The original HL 1 C++ is freely available for editing and will be our source. BiGToM has said that he can offer a C++ program to work with and a simple file share program to make this easier for the new coder.
He also said that a reward is available for the coder. He couldn’t give me an exact dollar figure due to not knowing how long recruitment may take or how much will be donated, but he estimated anything from $10 to $60 US. Potential applicants need to discus this with BiGToM directly.
And when I said “We need your help” I was being very literal. If you can’t code, but you know someone who does… point them in our direction. We need experienced help here.
It’s high time we got past this one trivial problem and moved this mod into it’s final development stages. We need a coder.
Contact BiGToM on MSN at sayrken@hotmail.com, email him at sayrken[AT]gmail.com, or stop by our forums at bwldevelopment.com and leave a message. You can even send a private message at ModDB if you like.
To make one point perfectly clear from our perspective… BWL will not be moving back unless something happens with our new host. I’ve already paid more then $50 in fees to our host for premium service and another more then $50 to my bank in releated fees.
I can’t get nearly that much back. And I’m going to be skipping a meal or two over the next two weeks until my next paycheck arrives.
This business with FileFront was very poorly managed from the outset. We as hosted sites had zero warning that the site would close and take us with it. We also had zero warning that a deal was in the works that might save the old site.
I’m happy to have our new host and be able to expand our functions a little. Fictions for other games are now more then welcome here and we will be adding at least a handful of additional forums in the gaming section for other popular games our members play.
We have long since passed the point of no return here… and I think we will be better off for it.
Be sure to post suggestions in this thread. And also indicate if you would be interested in tracking/writing news for one of these games/subjects. We will choose five by the end of April. Also, let me know if you have some “feature” that you would like to write about regularly.
We’re looking to take this site a little further then it has ever gone before. Even so, FileFront continues to offer the best free file hosting option we have. Therefore, I will continue to use their file services for our downloads.
Okay, I’ll admit… when I said I don’t care… I lied. I do care. Not because I care what happens to the site or plan to somehow redeem the old BWL, but I care out of shear morbid curiosity.
When I posted this morning, I was a tired and a little irritated. And I made a number of typos.
Anyway, I feel like editing the post with a little more effort.
So…
As of this moment, FileFront is still on-line. In fact, the forums are back up and running. Many comments on the countless news posts about the FileFront closing are calling shenanigans. Even on their own forums, there are several new topics asking if the “joke” was funny or if it was all a joke.
As I said a few days ago when we first started worrying about this, a bad April Fool’s joke was a possibility. But I still don’t believe this to be the case. I have a hard time believing that FileFront would allow a hoax to go this far. I mean seriously, there are news articles on actual gaming magazine websites about this.
A joke is a joke. On April Fool’s Day, everyone expects some form of cheap gag. For Battlefiled Hero’s, the site became Battlefield Dork. For Freeman’s Mind, it was the death of Freeman. On thatguywiththeglasses.com “That Guy” swapped all of his characters for his movie reviews and such. These jokes are meant to be amusing.
What happened on FileFront is hardly a joke. If it were an ill-advised April Fool’s Prank, then it would qualify more as a hoax. The problem with hoaxes would be that they may not be funny and often are hurtful.
I just can’t see FileFront affecting all of its hosted sites, all of it’s sub-sites, all of it’s sub-site’s hosted sites, and the forums and files. That would be reckless and detrimental. Not helpful.
Moreover, they HAVE been offering free hosting, free file hosting, etc. They make any money off advertising. Shutting down would be more then possible due to cost issues alone… which IS their explanation after all.
Still… it could be an out of control prank. And at this point, I don’t care. If it was a hoax, I won’t be going back. I’ve spent money on our new website. As have a number of other folks.
According to the forum announcement thread…
I assure you all that the forums being online at this time is not a joke or something that is temporary. What information I have is that there will be more information to be expected sometime tomorrow. I myself am not entirely sure what is going on and why the forums are back online. I’ll know when you know really. I was just instructed to let you know that this is for real and not a joke by any stretch of the imagination. I know many will not believe me because of the terrible timing, but the persons that I had talked to about this would never joke with me about this sort of thing.
More to come as I find it out.
Jeff
There is another possibility. Someone could have bought FileFront. There had been some rumors that UGO might be interested… given that they bought the rest of 1up last year.
Or the parent company, Ziff Davis, might have decided to leave the servers on-line for a month or so to allow its hosted sites to move… as opposed to the week they gave us last week.
In the end, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the news is later. But then again, that is the real problem. Zero communication.
No one has given us any real information. They haven’t explained why the site is still on-line. They haven’t said April Fool’s. No other company has announced that they have bought the site. Nothing.
So… I’m curious. What is happening?
What do you think? Was it an elaborate and poorly considered April fool’s day hoax that they are now affraid to end for fear of riot? Has someone rescued filefront from the brink of oblivion? Did it receive a last minute reprieve from the upper management types? A stay of execution? Did Barak Obama personally fly to California to rescue the company with a federal bailout? Do you even care?
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